


In which Cinder and Neo get some well earned rest

by Udbsken



Category: RWBY
Genre: F/F, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 00:13:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29800008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Udbsken/pseuds/Udbsken
Summary: While working a job with Neo in Atlas, Cinder is not pleased to find Watts cheaped out on securing a hotel room. Namingly, there’s only one bed
Relationships: Cinder Fall/Neopolitan
Comments: 5
Kudos: 30





	In which Cinder and Neo get some well earned rest

“Absolutely not,” Cinder said, folding her arms over her chest.

She had no problem working with Neo - she easily qualified as Cinder’s favourite coworker, if for no other reason than because everyone else kept sinking to levels of irritation never before thought possible. She also had no complaints about them sharing a room, strictly for efficiency reasons, of course. But the single queen sized bed crouched, almost innocently, before them? That was an insult. 

She looked over at Neo, who was staring down at the bed with far less trepidation on her face than Cinder thought this situation deserved. She glanced back at her.

“Are you really okay with this?”

Neo shrugged fluidly, raising her eyebrows slightly as if to say _you aren’t?_

“So I suppose you did this sort of thing all the time with your old boss then,” Cinder said, fixing her with a flat stare that suggested she very much doubted it. 

Neo’s lips quirked upwards. _We would have been happy with_ a _bed_ , she signed, _Can the Atlesian princess not slum it for a few nights?_

Cinder bared her teeth at that, beating the few bad memories that managed to slip past her barricade back to where they belonged. She didn’t like the sign for Atlas any more than she liked the feel of the word in her mouth - it was too sharp and angular, too neat. It seemed that the only way to keep it out of Neo’s hands, though, was to tell her exactly how luxuriously Atlas had treated her, and that wasn’t something she was willing to do. 

_Besides,_ Neo signed, seemingly having noticed the shift in Cinder’s expression, _you and I have a different sort of relationship._

She leaned towards Cinder as she finished forming the sentence, the smile still dancing over her mouth and her attempt at placation obvious enough that Cinder could have seen it even with both eyes blind. The smart thing to do would have been to push her away before she could get a chance to ruin Cinder’s perfectly good bad mood. But Cinder was starting to realise she wasn’t very good at being smart when Neo was close enough to her that she could count the droplets of gold the overhead lights put in her eyes.

So she leaned into it instead, bringing a hand up to catch the soft curls spilling over her ear. As soon as their lips brushed together, Neo pulled away with a silent laugh, leaving Cinder a flushed mess. If it had been anyone else, Cinder would have turned them to ash for seeing that, but for Neo Cinder’s blushing was an unfortunately common occurrence. Neo flopped onto the bed, which only she could manage to do with a dancer’s grace, folding one leg over the other. 

_Well, it’s comfortable,_ she signed. 

Cinder sighed, feeling the heat leave her face. “Fine,” she said, letting her groan drag the word a little. At the very least Neo should know she was annoyed about it. 

She slid onto her side of the bed. Neo was right, frustratingly - it was comfortable, the mattress sinking beneath her fingers like it was made of clouds, and the blankets the soft thousand thread count types that were probably a nightmare to clean. That was Atlas luxury for you, if you had the money to see it. 

Neo, seemingly satisfied, stretched her arms over her head, the marshmallow pink fragments of her semblance pouring over the length of her body until she was wearing casual sleepwear. The loose t-shirt and light pants were probably not appropriate for the alertness necessary for the middle of a mission, but Cinder’s eye, ever the traitor, insisted on noticing how soft her curves were underneath them, how they made the little criminal look comfortable, almost - domestic? That couldn’t have been the right word, it made Cinder’s breath much too shallow for that. Neo evidently noticed her gaze lingering, because she shot her a wink before settling under the blankets, tossing the duvva free from its hotel fold tucked down the side of the bedframe.

Cinder cast her boots onto the floor by the bed, but didn’t bother changing the rest of her clothes - they were comfortable enough for her to sleep in, and she wasn’t in the mood to dodge questions about the scar on her neck. She tapped Neo’s shoulder to get her attention, grabbing one of the plump pillows from her side of the bed.

“I’m putting this between us, okay? That way we’ll each have an equal share of the bed,” she said, injecting her voice with the sternness this matter warranted.

Neo rested her chin in one hand, blinking sleepily at Cinder with a slight smile tugging at her face. _Pedantic,_ she signed loosely to the ceiling, rolling over onto her other side before Cinder had a chance to defend herself. 

Cinder put the pillow between them anyway, wriggling under the blankets without untucking them from her side of the bedframe. She liked the closeness of it, the way the blankets pressed securely against her sides. The lights in the room were rigged to a movement sensor - they flicked off as soon as Cinder stilled, engulfing the room in a gentle darkness. In the silence of the room, Cinder couldn’t help but pick up on the mechanical nightlife of Atlas, the hum of drones and cars and electric lights outside their window setting her nerves on edge. Anyone else would have found it insane that she preferred the sounds of falling asleep inside the body of a massive whale to the polite buzz of a gentrified city. She wasn’t used to the steady rhythm of someone breathing beside her either, but that settled surprisingly comfortably in her chest. She let herself fall into the pattern of Neo’s breaths, the city sounds fading into the background between them, until she could imagine all there was in the world was the two of them, the soft darkness around them, and the lull of sleep. 

*

Cinder woke up with the first light streaming through the blinds, propping herself onto one elbow to watch the sky between the slats turn from pink to white as the sunrise started to fade into the steady light of day. Her arm twinged slightly, a shiver running down nerves she no longer had, which wasn’t unusual sleeping in a new bed. She sat up properly, flexing the wrist of her Grimm arm, which didn’t do that much to help, considering the ropey black muscle had little in the way of bones. It would pass shortly but -

A sleepy sigh sounded next to her and Cinder glanced over, the fact that she wasn’t alone in the bed having completely slipped her mind. Neo had moved closer to the centre of the bed in her sleep, one arm wrapped around the pillow designating the centre line in a show of flagrant disregard for the pillow system. Her curls spilled in a tangle over her back, some still squashed in the imprint of sleeping on them in a way that definitely didn’t make Cinder want to run her fingers through them. Cinder turned away before she could start doing something stupid like committing the softness of her sleeping face to memory, extricating herself from the blankets and retrieving one boot from the side of the bed. 

It was easy to fall into the routine of preparing for the day even in an unfamiliar location, shaking the last of the sleep out of her brain by running over her orders, laying out their plans in her head like she was pinning them to a bulletin board (there was a ‘people to kill’ note pinned in the corner of the board as well that she took quick stock of - the usual suspects of people who had wronged her, people Salem wanted dead, and everyone in Salem’s employ sans Neo). She tugged the second boot into place, things starting to come together into normalcy until Neo draped her arms around her neck and pressed a languid kiss to the side of her temple.

Suffice to say, the board was thrown into thorough disarray. 

Cinder froze under Neo’s touch, her mind short circuiting. Was this something they did? Neo pushing her against whatever stomach lining constituted a wall in the whale and kissing her like the world was ending - sure, fine. Cinder’s hands almost feverish as they pulled Neo closer to her, shivering slightly as Neo’s fingers brushed over her neck, her mouth curving into a smile against hers - fine. But this? Curling sleepily against each other in a way that felt entirely too much like something a couple might do? Cinder was comfortable around Neo, sure, but this was a whole other level of comfort - allowing your partner to touch you gently, carefully, with no expectation of reward. Partner … when had she started thinking of Neo like that? And if being weak was supposed to scare her, why did the weight of Neo’s arms on her shoulders make her feel so safe?

 _Cinder?_ Neo signed in front of her, clearly having noticed the way she was stiffening beneath her, but not moving away.

It was just fingerspelling the first letter of her name - C - but in that moment it felt oddly intimate to Cinder, like a secret shared between the two of them. Ironic, that the best way she’d heard her name said was from someone who’d never said it at all. She’d made a decision before she had time to think about it.

Cinder twisted under Neo’s arms so they were facing each other, holding one to herself so she could keep feeling the shared-bed warmth of her skin under her hand. Neo blinked owlishly at her, confusion colouring her two tone eyes. 

Cinder leant forward, bringing her free hand to Neo’s jaw to lift her mouth up to meet hers, which she didn’t need much prompting to do. The kiss was gentle, soft, still half swept up in their leftover drowsiness, far removed from the fire of their usual ones. It was unfamiliar, but it felt effortless at the same time. Like coming home.

“I love you,” Cinder murmured against her lips, at the same time as Neo pressed the words into her hand.


End file.
